Cell phones have become a crucial part of modern society, yet few people know their origins. From the Motorola Dynasty to the phone AS there is an interesting history in the cell phone. Early forms of cellular communication were the radios in ships and trains. The drive for the invention of truly portable devices came after World War II. Motorola demonstrated the first genuinely mobile phone in 1973 and a Japanese company named ANT launched the first automated commercial cellular network.
However, it would not be until later that cell phones would be commercially munched to the public and decades later until it could be cheap and widespread. In 1984 Motorola commercially released their mobile phone called the Dynasty. It was priced at four thousand dollars, gave you thirty minutes of talk time on 1 G signals, and had the shape and portability of a brick. At first, the device had to be hooked up to your car to use, and later came the one you could stuff into your briefcase. The first call on the Dynasty was made by David Mailmen in his Mercedes. Due to its high cost, only rich people and businesses could afford these devices.
Adjusted for inflation, if a Dynasty were to be released today it would cost ten thousand dollars. This cell phone was a marvel of an invention, but its availability to a limited amount of people also limited its success in the market so the majority still resorted to payphones as a means of communication when they were not at home. This would prompt Motorola to release a cheaper cell phone, the Microdot. In April of 1989, the release of the Microdot made headlines across world newspapers. It was the smallest and lightest cell phone at the time with its innovative “flip” design.
One of its key selling points was its ergonomics. The Microdot alleviated the pain of having to lug around a huge brick to make wireless calls and that it could fit into your shirt pocket. Despite costing two thousand dollars, it achieved a wider market than its predecessor. Motorola was very innovative in the early ass to early ass, but they were using an old standard of cellular communication. Today we use GSM and when it first came out, Motorola was unable to adjust well to the change unlike their competitors and certain features that were being demanded could only be provided on GSM.
Testing is a common feature expected on mobile devices today. This service relies on a GSM network and Monika was able to provide that to its customers with the Monika 2110 along with many other features. This included SMS sending and receiving, call logging, and larger memory. Despite its price tag of a thousand dollars, it was extremely popular, selling twenty million units in its lifetime. Phones still had more capability at the time; the IBM Simon, released in 1995, is the world’s first smartened. It had a calculator and other PDA features including a calendar, e-mail, ND it could even send faxes.
Priced at six hundred dollars, it was cheap for its time, but lasted less than a year. This showed the potential mobile phones has and thus paved the way for the smartened. The terminology, “smartened”, means a phone that has its own operating system with advanced capabilities such as GAPS, e-mail, and MPH payback. Today when we hear the word “smartened” we think of things like the phone, Samsung Galaxy, and release of the Palm Crockery 6035. The Crockery has its own modem for the Internet, e- mail client, and SMS service.
Few people would take advantage of the Internet feature because it was so Jerky and unintuitive. Apple managed to make mobile Internet more intuitive with the release of the phone. Although it did not have flash, people loved its multi touch features and how it felt like a desktop browser instead of a scaled down one. All these technologies came at a cost of a low two hundred dollars with service contracts. This creation led to other companies like Samsung, Sony, and Monika to follow in Apple’s footsteps, creating a widespread use of Smartness.
The expensive technology in these phones plus their popularity has developed a more negative side to owning one. Cell phones communicate through radio waves. As these radio waves produce radiation, they have the ability to cause cancer. However, a causal link between the two has not been established yet and the International Agency for Research on Cancer has only classified it as possibly carcinogenic. Although, cancer it not the only health issue speculated to be caused by cell phones. Putting a hot cell phone next to your ear is said to cause cataracts because your eye cannot dispose of the excess eat.
While these have not been proven yet, there are more problems to owning a cell phone that can affect us as we are living our lives. With the US being in a mildly decrepit economic state have prompted people to steal from others. The most popular item that is being stolen is mobile phones because of their high resale value. The authorities are now calling this crime “Apple picking” because the most popular phone to steal is the phone. Thieves simply sneak up to you, snatch your phone, and run. An phone 5 used would run for three hundred dollars on the market today.
In 2008, Apple made attempts to try and stop this with the release of Find My phone. This feature was ineffective because thieves could simply wipe the phone and that was it. Even if you managed to locate where your stolen phone is, the police are powerless to do anything because there is no probable cause to search anyone. It would take five years for Apple to design a more effective method at stopping this. Upgrading to ISO 7 ties your Apple device to your cloud account, thus requiring your cloud surname and password to wipe your phone, restore it, or turn off Find my phone.
If they do wipe your phone, they will need your password to reactivate your phone, this bricks the device in order to prevent resale of the phone. While this is not perfect, it helps deter thieves from stealing because they would be taking a risk for no reward. Yet, it is not petty thieves that we always have to worry about. With technology rapidly advancing, the government can monitor its citizens more often in more discreet ways. The NSA not has the ability to remotely tap the microphone of your cell phone without you ever knowing.
In addition, because our ell phones have become on of the hubs for our digital lives, this new ability of the NSA makes it easier for them to read our e-mails, tap our phone conversations, and look at our call history. While this is used as a counter terrorism measure, many Americans feel their rights to privacy are being breached. This could not end with just e-mails and wiretaps, many of us have stored pictures on our phones and they also have cameras, soon the NSA will be able to access those as well if they do not For better or worse, the cell phone has been influential in shaping this world.
No longer do we have to be tied to a wire to speak to someone three or three thousand miles away. Motorola Inc. Has been influential in the beginning development of cellular communications, but their influence on the cell phone market has faded, nonetheless, their legacy will still remain. As time passes, technology evolves, if we look back today it would seem like a Dynasty was from a hundred years ago. In the ass and ass, cell phone use was slim, around the time the 21st century was right around the corner cell phone use shot up due to consumer interest and affordability.
